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Megrahi

Letter from the Board Chair to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, dated January 27, 2015.

On behalf of the United States’ families of The Victims of Pan AM Flight 103, Inc., I would like to submit our position regarding the petition to appeal the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. We do not support this petition nor do we support the position of the UK family member, Dr. Jim Swire and those with whom he stands on this matter. While Dr. Swire is a family member of a victim of the bombing, he speaks for himself and not for the US families of victims.

We believe that justice was done in the Scottish judgment and the appeal, and we believe that the Scottish judicial system is praiseworthy, despite the calumny visited upon it by Megrahi’s supporters. Our only objection, deeply felt and fervently held, concerned the release of Megrahi and his return to Libya for a hero’s welcome.

We have great admiration for the people of Scotland, especially the citizens of Lockerbie, who opened their hearts to us. This small town lost its own citizens in a murderous, monstrous, treacherous act of state sponsored terrorism.

It will never really be “over”, but it is past time for Dr. Swire and the Megrahi supporters to end their disgraceful and expensive campaign.

Aug 28, 2009 - WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Eric Holder warned his Scottish counterpart in June that the man convicted of blowing U.S.-bound Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky could get a hero's welcome if allowed to return to Libya, according to the head of a group representing the families of victims.

Holder's warning to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill came nearly two months before the bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was released from a Scottish prison and greeted by a cheering crowd on his arrival in Libya last week.

We, the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, Inc, are devastated and outraged following the recent release of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from the Scottish prison in Glasgow. This man is the convicted mass murderer of our loved ones--270 innocent victims in all. He showed no compassion to them or their families when he placed a bomb aboard Pan Am 103, killing all 259 on board the plane and 11 on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. Since that time, he was tried and found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison in Scotland.

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In echoing the feelings of many of the family and friends of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 at the compassionate release of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, Kelly Homan Rodoski, Syracuse University '92, said "my heart is absolutely aching today."